


Going Once, Going Twice

by archea2



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Charity Auctions, Date Auction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Protective Original Percival Graves, Romance, the trope delivers, what the id wants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: Original prompt: They're auctioning dates off at MACUSA for some charity cause, and since Newt is a consultant, Queenie convinces him to volunteer. Nobody really takes this seriously, she insists, and it's all in good fun. And for most of the night, it is; Queenie even gets 'auctioned off' and it all seems very casual and in good humor.Except the guy who starts seriously bidding on Newt is well known as a sexually harassing sleazebag, and nobody has the extra money to bid against him. Nobody?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going on a blind guess here as to the Dragot-to-Galleon currency rate, since JKR only gave us a name for the American maj currency.

"Oh my Golem, look! That’s him on the platform! Look, Newt!"  
  
Twice already, Queenie has pinched his wrist in the course of a nettle julep (alcohol-free, Madam President's orders, although the word is already out that Todd from Portkey Frauds spiked the root beer), six canapés, two iced shrimps and eighteen oversalted peanuts. Newt wishes she'd stop.  
  
"Who?" He twists his head around cautiously. Probing new terrains is a Magizoologist's pride and joy, but tonight's fauna is well past his expertise. He's still not used to human affluence, and MACUSA's ballroom is crammed wall to wall with witches and wizards wearing their Samhain best. Sequin-sewn dresses and silver cufflinks and, Merlin, he did remember to lock Niffty in before he left?  
  
"Gordon 'Flash' Lockhart!" Queenie pipes up. "Bravest and handsomest wizard this side of Manhattan! Winner of the "Inspire Your Own Legend" Award! And he's..."  
  
"...your entertainer tonight, ladies and gentleman," this from a tall wizard with curly blond hair and a smile that would have Niffty swoon at first sight. "Now! While I’m aware that some of you have most kindly campaigned for my, ah, personal involvement in tonight's revels, I am loath to say that I’ll be standing aside from the prize row. But you're  _all_  getting a free apéritif with Gordon Lockhart! As you all know, MACUSA's Date Auction this year is dedicated to the war orphans’ relief fund, and..."  
  
Well, yes, Newt knows this. It's the exact reason why he's sitting here in a bow-tie, tucked between Tina's and Queenie's bare and powdered arms, opposite a beaming Jacob who has every reason to look relaxed: No-Majs, even honorary ones, are off the hook tonight.   
  
"Chuckle up, honey!" Queenie leans sideways. "It's all in good fun. D'you think Tina here would doll herself up and climb these steps otherwise?"  
  
"I'm not a  _doll_ ," Tina says firmly.  
  
"Well, me, then. And with a gentleman friend already" – laughing over at Jacob who spreads his hands out good-naturedly.  
  
"Just save me the last waltz," he tells her, eyes to the floor where a dozen guests are doing a dance called, to Newt's indescribable outrage, "the Thunderbird Trot". Thunderbirds don't trot.  _Birds_  don't trot. Why is he here again?  
  
Oh, yes. Orphans. He couldn't resist his friends' appeal, not when he himself has taken so many motherless babes under his wing. As MACUSA's new consultant, he was nominated by default. As MACUSA's latter-day saviour, he was strongly urged to say yes and crank up the whoopee. "It's a bit silly, but very harmless. Really," Tina told him. "The highest bidder gets to enjoy your company till midnight. You, well, you dance with them, smile, make yourself generally pleasant. Sometimes they take you to see a late no-maj show. These, how d'you call them - evil vaults?"  
  
"Vaudevilles," comes Jacob’s edit. "They're all the rage, these days."  
  
"Yes, those. Come midnight, fun’s over – the two of you part good friends and toddle off to bed."  
  
"Each to his own. Unless decided otherwise by both parties."

" _Queenie_."  
  
Newt still feels a bit stiff, possibly on account of the (many) Scourgifies he’s cast upon his long-suffering coat. He knows about dating - in principle. Somehow, the practice has never come to much more than sitting his date down and jumping to his feet again. It’s a bit hard to break the ice when your first words are doomed to be, _Um, can you not scratch at your neck, that’s my bowtruckle on it_ or _What a nice pendant you have – had – no, wait, there’s no call to – yes, Madam Puddifoot, I know this is a respectable –_ please _, everybody, if you’ll just keep calm and give me a jiffy_....

  
But MACUSA is a Newt-friendly habitat. MACUSA has given him friends, opportunities, a bright new life and a local publisher's advance that will see even the Erumpent through for the next year. This? Is how Newt can repay MACUSA.  
  
He nods to himself, the motion bringing him back to reality and the current event.  
  
"...gone! And to none other than Madam Seraphina Picquery, our highest bidder tonight! Well scored, Gertrude Goodwin! Don't forget to pick up your copy of  _How I Defeated Grindelwald's Lesser-Known Fourth Cousin by Marriage_  on your way out!"  
  
"Too bad yours is still under print," Tina whispers. "I'll take the Death Cell over any of Lockhart's prose."  
  
"Yes, but Gertie's still a lucky girl. Picquery always does that," Queenie adds for the men. "Picks up one of us small fry and makes sure they get a good time. Also, everyone knows Gertie's engaged to Bert of Potion Control, so there won't be any tittle-tattle. Oh, I’m next? Goody!"  
  
"Wish I could bid for you, sweetie-pie. But I'll just sit and clap for the lucky man, right?"  
  
"We know who that is in the end." Queenie brushes her lacquered lips to Jacob's moustache and trots up to the platform. Five minutes later, to a rip-roaring round of applause, she is slipping her arm under that of the infamous Todd.  
  
"Don't worry," Auror T. Goldstein confides rather loudly in the air. "Any ill-advised stunt, that boy knows who he'll answer to tomorrow."  
  
She pats Newt's shoulder and rises in turn. The bidding, slightly wobbly at first, soars up when Tina waves her handbag, telling the crowd how it holds Theseus Scamander's personal autograph to her, and wouldn't they like a peep at that?   
  
"Clever girl," Jacob says. Then perks his ear and giggles over his root beer. "Was that your name, pal? Go bring the house down!"  
  
Newt stands up. Newt flashes back a faint smile at Gordon Lockhart's come-hither grin and MACUSA's ovation. Newt steps over to the platform.  
  
All good fun, his friends say. And he trusts them. And it's not like he can't socialize for a few hours, can he? _It will be nice to make a new acquaintance_ \- his mother's words, echoed from long ago, enveloping him like her arms while they stood on Platform 9 3/4. Perhaps they'll want to know about the ashwinders? He's just revised his chapter about them, could tell his date about their pure, incandescent...  
  
Then Newt hears the silence.

 

* * *

 

The man crossing upstage to Picquery’s vacated table, at the very foot of the platform, is known to many. He is Jaeger Jackson, heir to the Family that gave MACUSA its first president and kept it afloat in its post-Salem days. This Jackson mostly keeps himself afloat: he owns a roadster, a Hippogriff racing stable, nine parts of a no-maj skyscraper, and a bank account that could allegedly bring Gringotts’ Treasury Board _and_ the gold bullion to their knees. 

And he likes his little fun.

While presidential heirs hold a right of access to MACUSA, what Jaeger does there isn’t very clear to Newt. Some office of rank, presumably – though he’s the very opposite of a desk worm. If anything he’s a hound. Booze-hound, sex-hound, hound-of-all-trades. The sort that will let his arm slither up and round your neck while he leans over to supervise your work, flicking his tongue to the tip of your quill. Newt remembers Red the Bellboy giving him the tiniest shake of the head, after the elevator’s doors pinged open and there was Jaeger Jackson, showing him into the cage, his hand wooing Newt’s hip as he did. Newt slapped his forehead brightly and turned on his heels.

Rumors of witches and wizards asked to bring in a report well past office curfew. Elusive, clingy words; never a big boom, because Jaeger’s smart, a touch-and-go hound in the workplace, but enough to set the hearsay going – and then it runs like fiendyfire – that you really do not want him on your side Problem is, you don’t want him on your bad side either. So it seems that the only victory over him is flight, when Picquery herself (said Tina once, lips hard and angry) can’t afford to pluck that thornbush off MACUSA’s side.

Except, now, flight is not an option. 

Newt watches as Jaeger sits, his thighs splayed apart, waving Lockhart to move on. If the latter has any clue why the atmosphere has dropped to wintry levels, he doesn’t betray it – merely gifts Jaeger with a peer-to-peer smile. 

"And here we have a strapping young specimen –" Oh god, Jaeger is leering. Newt has a dramatic view on his slack-jawed, heavy-lidded face, his patrician looks gone to waste. When his eyes spider up to Newt’s, Newt looks away, the heat flagellating his cheeks.

"… shared the front page with me in _Transfiguration Today_ , after Director Graves refused to… but some of us have their reasons that reason knows not of. A prize escort, ladies and gentlemen!"

Somebody shut that fool up!

"…blushes so charmingly…"

"Ten Dragots!" Heads turn, Newt’s too, swirled by gratitude. The infamous Todd grins sheepishly, rubbing at his wrist.

"Haha, Mr Greencoin – no buyer’s remorse, I hope?"

"Forty Dragots." Jaeger Jackson stretches his legs out platform-ward.

"Now we’re talking!" And Lockhart parades Lockhart’s smile once more around the room. "Do I hear…"

"Fifty." The quiet voice of Elijah Bienvenu, Newt’s supervisor.

"Two hundred." 

"Two…two hundred and ten!" Tina and her bidder, their heads close together – with six others. Opal from Interstate Floo Statistics is holding her pearl-beaded bag upside down over the table. Obviously, they’re pooling resources. 

Jaeger Jackson throws his head back and laughs. "Five hundred Dragots. He’s worth them."

The unease is thick enough that you could carve slabs out of it and sell it by the pound. Breathe, Newt pleads with himself. Breathe. You’ll live – you can ask to stay in this room, Tina and the others will too, he can’t force you... (Can he?) A few hours, that’s it. Only a few hours of dancing with Jackson, of Jackson’s roving hands and his vile-storying breath… Newt’s sweat is staining his peripheral vision, prickly with too-bright dots.

"A year-round, all-you-can-eat voucher for Kowalski’s!"

 _Jacob_ , Newt thinks, eyes closed, stinging at the loyal, hopeless rush unto the breach.

"Mister…" Lockhart’s voice too is sickeningly bright. "Mister No-Maj, I’m afraid any degradable currency is off the cards!"

Silence.

"Well, Mr Scamander, you can boast of a record bid. Going once…"

For the orphans.

"Going twice…"

He can do this.

"Two thousand Dragots."

 

* * *

 

The words hover outside Newt’s ear a moment before they sink in, relief fairly _splashing_ up his veins. The grey tide fades out, even if it takes a few seconds for the room to swim back into focus. When it does, and he forces a look down, Jaeger’s gaze fails to come level. Jaeger’s gaze, like Gordon’s, like the ebb and flow of everybody’s gaze across the room, has moved to one of the corner tables, where they all meet with a pair of poised eyes.

Lockhart’s are the first to leave the field.

"Director Graves. Why, that’s… that’s rather…" Lockhart shimmies self-consciously. "A joke is a joke is a joke? Haha. Ha. Not that I’d have pegged you for a wag…"

"I have never" – Graves’s eyes are not on his interlocutor – "been more serious."

Newt can’t see Jaeger’s face. But he sees it flinch alert; raise a tic, half-buried into the fleshly neck. Slowly, heavily, Jaeger returns his hand to his knee.

"Two thousand Dragots," Lockhart repeats, tilting the scales further away from centerstage. "This is very –"

"This is an I.O.U.," Graves cuts in, holding up his napkin – the linen still immaculate – with his initials pencilled on it. "I think you will find that I am solvent, Mr Lockhart. Shall we carry on?" 

It takes the next words to do the spell: to Transfigure the pillory back into a platform, and carry Newt down it in two steps. He doesn’t care if they send him bang into Jaeger’s vision field, and in fact they don’t: not when Graves is standing between them. Graves bows; Newt, still light-headed, bows back and takes his arm.

The band strikes up again, and the floor is no longer theirs – much to Newt’s delight.

 

* * *

 

"Why?"

The man he only saw twice before (once in a hospital bed, briefly, and once on Newt’s first and hopefully last job interview) signals for two fresh cocktails. Newt takes a long sip, relishing the solid coldness of the glass under his palms.

"Why?" Graves smiles a little. "Let's see. Why would I hate the thought of a piece of _scum_ appropriating you so he can take liberties with your physical presence?" He runs a hand through his hair, and Newt’s mind flashes back to the gaunt, odd-cropped head on a hospital pillow. "Because I’ve been there?"

Newt lets the understanding in, then says simply "Thank you". 

"Please. Consider it a kindness repaid. And don't worry about Jackson – you won’t have cause to, ever again. The President and I are... in the midst of some intra-ward planning." Graves raises his own julep. "Newt."

Newt hears the unspoken request. "Percival." 

The dark eyes light up, and suddenly the man – deputy - friend across the table looks younger; the golden walls and bright music less of a set-off for his Gravitas. They clink glasses, and Percival says, "So tell me, how’s the book going?"

 

* * *

 

"They’re still looking at me." 

"Of course they are. You’re tittering."

"I’m doing… nothing… of the sort." Graves wipes at his eyes. "Seriously, though? You shared your nursery with… with a…"

Newt sighs dramatically. "Only part time. I told you!" 

"Now I know why you bow so gracefully. Nothing like early practice."

"Hippogriffs are slow-paced and Mother thought it all the better to socialize them early on. Also, it saved bottle time, once she’d taught Fido not to shred the rubber teat – _will_ you stop?"

Percival clutches the tabletop and makes exactly no effort to stop.

 

* * *

 

"…Our family house had Leprechauns – a whole dozen of them. They flatly refused to stay back in Eire, so my _Morai_ poked a few holes into her witch-hatbox: she was always one for tradition. I visited them on school holidays, the Leprechauns. Well, until they discovered the Wisconsin wood fairies and decided to go forth and multiply."

"Did you go back to see them?"

Percival leans forward and taps a gentle finger to the stem of Newt’s spoon. The ice-cream, well past liquefaction, answers with a blobbing sound. "I’ll tell you if you resume eating. You’ve been holding that spoon in a death grip for the last five minutes."

"It’s delicious! No, really!" Newt hastens to bring the freeze-framed spoon to his mouth. "I’d never tasted marshmallow cream before. But did you?"

"No." Percival sighs across his smile. "I’m not sure I could even find them now - they’ve learnt natural camouflage."

"But they’d know you."

"Would they?" Loaded lower tones, deeper than Percival’s customary baritone. "Am I so knowable?" 

" _Yes_ ," Newt says, carried away by a fierce, fond instinct he does not try to parse. Then keeps his nose to the ice-cream bowl for the next ten minutes.

 

* * *

 

Those who would think Newt the worse Scamander on a dance floor are wrong. Really, truly wrong. Theseus it is who grows a second left foot, because Theseus’s motto is _stand up and fight_ , and there’s only so far standing up will take you in a waltz.

Newt, who can Apparate and Disapparate inside of a two-foot radius, _loves_ dancing. He side-slips past Tina on their second turn of the room and wonders at her baffled face - but she waves back quickly, and Newt lets the joy spread on his.

Dancing is like riding Artemis at dawn. When there’s nothing but speed and the sun, and the strong wind at his back, tightening his hold to swing him round a corner, safe and anchored.

 

* * *

  

"It’s good to see New York back in one piece," Newt says. They’re sitting on MACUSA’s roof, sharing a warming spell and a cup of late-night coffee. ("Elevenses": Percival, with half a smirk at his staple diet.)

"I don’t know if I’m sad or glad I missed that." Percival lifts his chin, his face upturned to the sky. "I know that I missed these."

The Dragon is right above MACUSA: Newt greets it like an old friend. "Ashwinder-bright," he says. "Did I tell you about the eggs?" 

"Yes." Percival leans back against a chimney pot, not caring if his black tails end up sooty. Newt’s coat already sports a few smudges, as per usual. "Tell me again." 

And so Newt tells him of the eggs in his case, how Frank wrapped them in their own microclimate before he left, leaving it to Dougal to foresee the birthdate. "They’re so, oh! so pure and incandescent and restful, Percival. As if they had no idea of the light they give. If you see what I mean, I’m not very good at –"

"Yes," Percival says quietly. "I think I do see it." 

 

* * *

  

The floor _is_ a battlefield when they return. Most of the guests are gone, but the remaining couples spin and totter with gusto, including Jacob and Queenie. Newt thinks he can make out Todd’s legs, sticking out from under the platform draperies.

"I should see you safely home," Percival says after Newt has yawned three times in a row. "Is it all right if I Side Along you? Or, if you want another never-before taste of America, my De Dion-Bouton is at the door." 

Newt chooses the De Dion-Bouton on the safe assumption that it will provide the longest way home. 

Percival is in fact reluctant to fly it on a Saturday night, when the crowds are out and the Broadway lights an additional hazard. They progress in starts and fits – Percival is still getting the hang of no-maj driving – then, upon his releasing the hand brake, in smooth, companionable silence. The longest way is still too short for Newt, closing his eyes so that peace can reach out to memory...

… _unless decided otherwise by both parties._

He opens them to the gust of night air from an open car door.

"Is this the right place?" Percival is looking at his little house, a relic of Greenwitch Village’s early days, before the condos took over.

"Yes. Yes, I…" Newt disentangles himself from the car seat; feels the familiar tug and give of his wards. "I’ve had a wonderful evening, Percival."

"The feeling is mutual." Percival takes his offered hand, takes a breath. "I should leave you to your rest."

Newt’s next words do what they always do: blurt their way out of his unlatched mouth, eager on escape, when there is a bright new perspective within reach. "Would you like to come in and see my eggs?"

Percival’s puff of laughter is all right, if unexpected: kind, a gift of breath and warmth to the air between them. 

"This must be the most pure-hearted innuendo…" Percival checks himself. "Yes. Where are my manners? With very great pleasure, Newt. If, if this is what you want."

"Yes. Oh god, yes." Newt takes the first step, hears the door click open in his back. "Going once…"

A light kiss on his hand. The doorway awaits them.

"Going twice…" Percival turns his hand over, presses his lips to the long lifeline inside. 

"Gone," Newt tells the kiss, and lets the door shut the two of them safely home.


End file.
